Zach Diamond  0:03  
Zach, welcome to the modern classrooms project podcast with Karim Farah, Kate Gaskill and me Zach diamond, each week, we bring you discussions with educators on how they use blended, self paced and mastery based learning to better serve their students. We believe teachers learn best from each other. So this is our way of lifting up the voices of leaders and innovators in our community. This is the modern classrooms project podcast.

Kareem Farah  0:33  
Hello and welcome to episode number 42 of the modern classrooms project podcast. My name is Kareem Farah, and I'm the co founder and CEO of the modern classrooms project. I have been excited about a lot of podcast episodes. In the past, I've had the privilege to chat with some incredible teachers and colleagues, not sure I've ever been more excited, though, because today's podcast episode is about the student experience, and I have the wonderful privilege of having one of my former students is now in college, Jayme Mims here to share about her experience learning in a modern classroom and what impacts it had for her as she left high school and went on to college. So I am super, super pumped about this. If you've seen the Edutopia, you may actually know Jayme Mims, she was in the Edutopia video, but she is now here with us to have a wonderful conversation. So Jayme, how are you welcome? 

Jayme Mims  1:25  
Hi. How are you I'm good.

Kareem Farah  1:30  
Can you just first share a little bit more about what it was like to get introduced for the first time to a modern classroom in my class,

Jayme Mims  1:41  
I could definitely say I had from grades 10 and down to learning traditionally, where the Orthodox were teaching from the teacher standing in front of you, and more like college style, where the professor is just talking talking. You get the homework. It's more hands on, I can say so I'm taking that transition into the modern classroom. It was really hard. I could not I could not understand it. I did not know why we had to work on a laptop. I was I was, I was like, The Reluctant child. You know, it definitely was. It was uncomfortable at first my junior year, because I'm like, I got two years of high school left. Why do I have to learn a new way of teaching? But um, because fair introduced it to us as a as a new style in a more self direct direction. It was very adjustable. I was able to adapt to it, like, really pushing towards end of junior year into senior year. So it wasn't, it wasn't that hard to adapt to, but at first it was really uncomfortable, because every other class that had excluded math was traditional. We had, we had the teacher, and we had, you know, the books and stuff. So I could definitely say it was fairly, fairly, fairly new, but now it it. I can remember I senior year, it was more like, Oh, I know what I got do next. I know what I got to do by next week. I know what how to prepare before the exam that we have, and then before the final. So it became like more. What's the proper word to say? It became more. It became more old than a new, new. You know what I mean? I do. I was really, I used to be really upset at Mr. Farah. Like, why you can't just explain it to us? Why do we have to watch a video? I definitely remember me asking those questions a lot, um, junior year, because I was just, I first said I was very reluctant. I did not want to, I did not want to adapt to a new learning style. I figured I already struggled with putting I don't know if a lot of students have this in math, but I would just answer the question and Mister for be like, Well, show me the work. And I'll be like, Well, why do I gotta do that? And so taking that already, fighting that type of putting your, you know, your evidence on paper. It was like, not evidence. Listen to me talking about law, putting your putting the problem on the paper and like, selling how you're actually solving. It was already kind of frustrating to me, because I was like, I will I got the answer. Why does it matter how I got the answer? And then moving on to the modern style classroom, you had to you had to really write your own notes. You had to listen to the instructions. You had to follow it detail by detail. And I just, I used to be like, Well, why can't you just tell it to us, why you can't just put it on the board, and why you can't just make the write down the notes for us and hand it out. I was like, lazy. I didn't want to do anything, because I was used to that traditional where the here, this is how. You do it, the instructions are already laid out to you. It wasn't really critically hands on. The physical part was there traditionally. But when you got a part of the modern classroom, it was more, what do you take away from this? And if you missed something, how did you miss it? And when did you miss it? So it was really important to as gradually as I got, you know, along with the program, I was able to see like, oh, well, when he explained it, I probably would have missed some things. And now I'm able to go back and double check and look at my own notes, because if I missed something within my own notes, that mean I wasn't paying attention fully as I should have been. And you can't go back in time to lectures that a professor or a teacher give you. So being able to use that style was like, really, it was really hard at first, because I really hated writing my own notes. I even hated showing how I got the answer to a math question. So I could definitely say that that was, like, the more in depth part of why I was reluctant. But then it gradually got better. It was, I think that was, like, the Great, the greatest thing I was able to take from it was being on my own time. And that really happened to worry about why I'm not caught up. In a sense, it was like, Okay, I know I'm behind, but like, I can, like, catch up on my own time before the deadline of the exam or something like that. So yeah,

Kareem Farah  6:26  
and I mean, I always tell you this, we've known each other for a long time now. And you know, you often undersell just how many responsibilities you did have. You know, for the listeners, Jamie had an incredible amount of responsibilities for a high school student, and she'll never admit it, because she's always hard on herself, but the reality was, you know, there were days where Jamie couldn't make it to class for reasons that had absolutely nothing to do with Jamie, and it would bother her. And it was amazing how unfair was to Jamie. If you know what I did that class was deliver a live lecture, and you just missed it, and then you're behind and you're playing catch up. So Jamie was one of the students that really thrived with the capacity to be able to always access that content, learn it at her own pace, and make up for those days that she wasn't able to make it to class 

Jayme Mims  7:21  
the time management with the modern classroom in high school definitely gave you a sense of, okay, everything needs to be done by this date, because you have an exam on this date, and it was like, how am I going to get all these assignments done with the exam coming up? Because I still have to create out fairness, create our own study guys to then take the exam. So if you weren't, if you weren't getting at least, I want to say three assignments done by the end of the week. Then me personally, because I I'm like a I want to say slow. I took my time. I procrastinated a lot. I took my time, and I definitely did not want to be behind, but I also didn't want to over jump the bullet and didn't pay attention to half of the lectures. I used to skip through lectures and then come the exam. It was like parts of the lecture that was on the exam, and I missed it because I skipped it. So definitely had to go back and, um, just take my time. I had to learn how to take my time, and I rushed through the lectures. I also had to learn how to take my own notes, because that was something new to me. I did not know how to take notes at first. And, um, I didn't even know how to make a study guide. So I definitely had to learn time management, because everything was fairly new, and traditional courses didn't give me the opportunity to, you know, get the jump on it, because if they did, I wouldn't have struggled with that. 

Kareem Farah  8:56  
It sounds like when you got there at first, it was a little bit shocking. Like, whoa, 

Jayme Mims  9:02  
yeah. It definitely was. Even with the resources that we have in colleges, you have to do the work first and still make time to get the help and then submit it. So it wasn't like I could write the paper, send it to the Student Help Center like, you know, go in there and get them to help me read through my paper. It was like, No, you had to write that entire paper, or to get at least halfway through your paper. Take it to them. They not even going to give you the answers. They're going to be like, Well, what do you think about this paragraph here? And it's like, I thought the paragraph was perfect. You know, I thought that. I thought the the math I thought I saw the math problem, right? And they're like, Well, what do you think about it? And now I have to go back and look at everything that took notes on. And I'm like, Oh, well, I could, I seriously know when you pointed out I missed a couple steps, but I still would not have been able to even go get. Help from their career the car center, if I did not plan it. Because it was like, if my paper is due Thursday, I know I got to be done with this paper by Tuesday. Go to them on Wednesday, edit it Wednesday night, Thursday evening, and submit it before the deadline. So it was like, Thank you, fair. I didn't, you know. I didn't even realize how much of a impact that the modern classroom had on me, until you really starting to sit and think, where did I learn these skills from? You know, that song that goes like, don't rush. Don't rush. Oh my goodness, do not rush. Do not compete with, you know, stand you know, staying up to date with your classmates. It's okay if you're if you're less than behind, it's okay if you're a lesson ahead. Work together. Please work together. Don't compete. Um, it's definitely not a competition at the end. College does not, um, care about what your classmate was doing at the end of the day, but they care about what you did and your grades and your impact on yourself, so don't rush. Take your time, be open to failure, because you're not not saying that. You're not going to get it right away, but it's not going to come easily. Um, it definitely shouldn't come too hard, but it's okay if you're a lesson behind, it's okay if you're a lesson ahead, and have faith in yourself. You're gonna, you're gonna Excel, whether you know it or not, because I used to be so hard on myself, and I think fair can agree with that. I used to be so hard on myself, so um, definitely be open to new, new things. Question everything. If you don't, if you don't understand, make sure you you ask yourself why you don't understand before you go to the teacher and try to navigate with your own speed. Don't try to compete. It's not a it's not a rush. It's just, it's a learning opportunity which will impact your life significantly. So what I would give to the teachers, 95% of your students might be confused, upset and angry at you, and it's not your fault. They're going to be upset, because you got to think it's something new. And when people are are put into a new situation, the first thing that hits them is confusion and to question, well, why do we have to do it this way if we've been doing it another way for X amount of years? So bear with the students. Also be very be very fine with them as well. For instance, if you tell us to be through lessons one through five by the next week, make sure at least 95% of the students are through lessons one through five. Because if you allow for them to only be through lessons one through two, and they've had two weeks, it's like, okay, now you guys aren't taking it serious. You guys aren't really listening to me. And also remember the chart you used to keep fair? I do the tracker. Yeah, you should share that with us, because it was like, if this group of eighth graders versus that group of eighth graders, y'all both in the same level, and this class is at 85% your class is at 15% you're gonna be like, Come on, y'all, we gotta do the work. We gotta get it together. So do the tracker method with the kids as well, and let them know that it's okay to be confused. But you also gotta take the initiative to unconfuse yourself. Be patient, but also be very, really, really firm with deadlines, because before you know it, you'll find yourself two weeks behind, and you'll be sitting there like, Well, why is everyone two weeks behind? And just expect for everyone to think that it's like something new, and put yourself in the students shoes, if you were given that same type of new environment 20 years ago, when you were a student, not saying you guys are old, but you know, if you guys put yourself in these shoes, you'll be like, well, this is not how we learn, but you gotta show them and guide them. Now, I know what to expect. I know what's coming. I can definitely say that's a huge thanks. A round of applause. A round of applause.

Kareem Farah  14:28  
Awesome. Well, that's all, folks. Jayme, thank you again. We'll be back at it next week, and I think that covers it, folks. Bye, everyone.

Zach Diamond  14:40  
Thank you so much for listening. You can find links to topics and tools we discussed in our show notes for this episode, and remember. You can learn more about our work at www.modernclassrooms.org and you can learn the essentials of our model through our free course at learn.modernclassrooms.org you. You can follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at modernclassproj, that's P, R, O, J, we are so appreciative of all you do for students in schools. Have a great week, and we'll be back next Sunday with another episode of the modern classrooms project podcast.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai